He had guards. Why did he need this prayer?
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) was the leader of the Jewish people in his time. The Gemara says that from Moshe until Rebbi, Torah and greatness were never found together in one person. And right after it quotes his prayer, the Gemara adds a short comment: he said this "even though officers stood over Rebbi."
Rashi (the classic commentator on the Gemara) explains who they were. They were guards posted by order of Antoninus, the Roman emperor who appears in the Gemara as Rebbi's friend. Their job was to strike and punish anyone who stood up against Rebbi. So the man who kept asking to be saved from brazen people and bad neighbors already had the emperor's guards around him.
The Gemara does not say what we should learn from that. But look at how Rashi explains the first two requests. "From brazen people": that they should not pick a fight with me. "From brazenness": that they should not spread a slur of mamzer status about me (a mamzer is the child of a forbidden union). Here is one way to read it. Guards can deal with someone who attacks you. They cannot do much about what someone says about you.
The Gemara tells of exactly that happening. A man came to Rebbi and claimed that Rebbi's wife was his wife and Rebbi's children were his children. The Gemara brings the story as an example of the verse "Do not answer a fool according to his foolishness." Rebbi did not argue. He offered the man a cup of wine, and the man drank it and, in the Gemara's word, burst. Rabbi Chiyya said afterward that it was Rebbi's prayer that protected him.
Now look at what our siddur added to his list: the evil eye, evil talk, being informed on, false testimony, false accusation. Most of that is harm done with words. On this reading, that is the kind of harm guards cannot stop. The Gemara makes a point of telling us that the person who had them still asked.
Berakhot 16b, with Rashi,Gittin 59a,Shabbat 30b,Avodah Zarah 10a-10bWait, there is a Satan in Jewish prayer?
One of the requests is to be saved from "the Satan who destroys." Most people know that word from movies and cartoons: a figure with horns who runs his own kingdom and fights God. The Jewish sources describe something else.
In Hebrew, satan is an ordinary word. It means someone who stands in your way, an opponent. When Bilam rode out to curse the Jewish people, the Torah says an angel of Hashem stood on the road "as a satan to him." In that verse the satan is an angel God sent, doing what it was sent to do.
In the book of Iyov (Job) it is "the satan," with "the" in front, like a job title. He comes along with the angels who stand before God, and he argues that Iyov is only good because God protects him. He cannot touch Iyov until God allows it, and God sets the limit each time. First: "only do not lay a hand on him." Later: "only spare his life."
The Gemara sums up his role in one line: he goes down and leads a person astray, goes up and accuses him, gets permission, and takes the soul. Then Reish Lakish, one of the great teachers of the Gemara, says: "He is the Satan, he is the urge to do wrong, he is the Angel of Death."
The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) writes that this line clears up every doubt on the subject: one thing is being called by three names. He also explains the word. Satan, he says, comes from a root that means to turn aside, because this is what turns a person away from the true path.
So this is not a request to be rescued from a second power that fights God. In each of these sources the satan acts only with God's permission. Notice where the request sits in the prayer: right before "a harsh judgment and a harsh opponent."
Bamidbar 22:22,Iyov 1:6-12 and 2:6,Bava Batra 16a,Rambam, Guide for the Perplexed 3:22Isn't being bold a good thing?
The first thing this prayer asks is to be saved from "azei panim" and from "azut panim." Both come from the word "az," which means strong or bold. Azut panim is literally "boldness of face": a person who is not embarrassed in front of anyone.
But Pirkei Avot (the part of the Mishnah that collects the early rabbis' sayings on how to live) uses the same word as praise. Yehudah ben Teima says: "Be bold (az) as a leopard... to do the will of your Father in Heaven." He goes on: "The brazen-faced (az panim) is headed for Gehinnom, and the one with a sense of shame for the Garden of Eden." Gehinnom is the place of judgment after death.
The Tur (a code of Jewish law from Spain in the 1300s) opens his whole code with "bold as a leopard" and explains what it is for. Sometimes a person wants to do a mitzvah and holds back because people are laughing at him. Against that, be bold. Do not let the mockers stop you.
The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) adds a limit, in the name of the Beit Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Karo's commentary on the Tur). Even then, do not get into a fight with them. Brazenness is an ugly trait, he writes, and it should not be used at all, even for serving God, because it becomes part of you and you will be brazen in other places too.
Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers, Spain, 1300s) reads our prayer with both sides in mind. "From brazen people": that they should not defy me and spread a slur about me. "And from brazenness": that I, too, should not be brazen toward others, "because the brazen-faced is headed for Gehinnom." Rashi (the classic commentator on the Gemara) reads the second request differently, as one more thing other people do to you: spreading a slur about your birth.
On Abudarham's reading, the prayer asks for both. Keep people like that away from me. And do not let me become one.
Pirkei Avot 5:20,Tur, Orach Chaim 1,Mishnah Berurah 1:5,Abudarham, Morning Blessings,Rashi on Berakhot 16b